I just listened to a CBC Ideas podcast regarding the future of books called
Closing the Book. In the program, they talked about the meteoric rise of eBooks and the slow decline of the dead tree version. They talked about how eBooks are changing (and will continue to change) publishing, they interviewed people that believed that the printed book would be dead in 15 years, and they had people stating that print would never truly die. The latter group of people are starting to sound like old cranks to me. "I don't want to be a part of this new fangled eReading! You'll have to pry these books from my cold dead hand!"
OK, nobody actually said that, but to me, that is how they are coming across.
I don't believe that the world will convert fully to eBooks in the very near future as I think there will always be a niche market for the physical book. I do believe that over the next few years however, the eBook will far out pace sales of physical books, just as some of the people interviewed on the Idea's program. Many of them also think that this will be the end of your local book shop as there will be no need for a bookshop in an ebook world. This is where my opinions diverge with those who were interviewed in Ideas.
I think that it will be the big chains that will feel the squeeze from the eBook revolution. Stores like Chapters/Indigo, Borders, or Whitcoulls will lose out because their one advantage over the traditional local bookshop, low prices, will no longer be a factor. With the high overhead that these book superstores have, they simply will not be able to compete against the likes of Amazon. This is where I think the local bookshops will gain the upper hand.
Local bookshops have virtually always been owned and operated by book lovers; voracious readers who have, over many years, developed a wealth of tacit knowledge over everything about the written word. These type of people not only know about the literature itself, but they also delve into various tangential aspects of literature: author biographies, digging into source materials, learning the ins and outs of the publishing business, etc. These people are the curators that we will need in the new eBook world; people who can use their knowledge to direct me to new types of literature I may be interested in. That is one area where I see a need for the local book shop.
Another area that the local bookshop can excel at is in the procurement of real books. As I said earlier, the written word will never totally go away, so it will be the the responsibility of the local bookshop to acquire the physical books no longer available through the large chain stores: the signed first editions, the ancient leather bound copies, or simply a normal hard cover instead of the virtual book. Looking into the future, I can also foresee local bookshops providing print-on-demand books for patrons that simply want a physical keepsake. There is also a benefit that current bookshops do that will never be available in a virtual format, that is having authors give personal readings during their book tours. Barnes & Nobel is really good at this!
Finally, I can envision a local bookstore partnering with the ebook distributers themselves. Have you ever tried to get a feel for a book you've never read through an online bookstore? Some sites will let you read a the first page or two, or sometimes even a random page or two from the book. I don't know about you, but for me, I often can't get a read (pardon the pun) on the author's style from a couple of pages. This is where the local bookshops can help out. Picture a bookshop that has a bunch of eReading devices with virtually every book you can possibly think of. These devices would be available to all of the bookshop's patrons and would be licensed for in store use only; this would help avoid piracy. All of the books available on the device would be either free to the bookstore, or at a ridiculously reduced price. Now, if the consumer wishes to purchase the eBook, based on what he has read while in the bookstore, they can wirelessly purchase the book through the bookstore's network. The purchase itself would be through a partnership program similar to Amazon's partnership program currently in place.
I've got a Kindle. I love my Kindle. I still like books too, and I don't think they're going anywhere...for a while.
